‘No you’re not, lad,’ said Matthew’s father. ‘No you’re not. You’ve saved that cow and I can think of many more you’ve put to rights for us. You stay put.’
‘Nice when it works out,’ said the vet as he started up his car. He had already driven out of the yard gate when Matthew suddenly started shouting and tore up the lane after him waving his hands. The vet spotted Matthew in the driving mirror and screeched to a dusty halt. Matthew came running up and leant on the car door.
‘Stray, you said.’
‘What’s that, Matthew?’ The vet turned off his engine.
‘Stray. You said you had a stray. Stray what?’
‘Just a cat,’ said the vet. ‘Just an old tom found wandering up on old Hildstock’s farm. Why? You wouldn’t want a cat, would you? You’ve got one already, haven’t you?’
‘He’s dead,’ said Matthew. ‘Run over a few days ago on the road to the village.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Matthew, sorry to hear that. Would you like a look at this one? He’s old, but he looks a tough old devil. He’d be good value on your farm I should think, and I know he’d be a lot better off here than where he’s bound for.’
‘What colour is he?’ Matthew asked as the vet tried to undo the string around the top of the sack.
‘Don’t know, difficult to see in the bottom of a sack, but I’d say he was a gingery sort of a cat with crumpled ears. I’ve seen him somewhere before, sure I have. I can’t get this confounded cord loose.’
Matthew gripped his arm. ‘Did you say ginger?’ The vet nodded. ‘With crumpled ears?’
‘Think so.’
‘But Monty had crumpled ears, and he’s ginger.’
‘Monty?’ The vet was looking perplexed.
‘My old cat,’ said Matthew.
‘But you said your cat was dead; run over, you said.’ The vet finally loosened the cord and pulled open the sack. ‘See for yourself, Matthew, but watch his claws. He doesn’t like being in that sack; he’s scratched me once today already.’
As Matthew looked into the sack, his father came puffing up the lane and reached the car. ‘It’s him,’ Matthew said, looking up at the vet and beaming. ‘It’s Monty.’
‘Monty’s dead,’ said Matthew’s father. ‘We buried him last week. It can’t be him.’
‘He was dead,’ said Matthew as he pulled Montezuma out of the sack. ‘He was dead and I buried him, but now he’s alive again.’ He held Montezuma up in the air and examined the white patch on the throat. ‘I thought so. I knew that patch wasn’t the same on the other cat.’ He set Montezuma down on the ground and crouched down beside him to stroke him.
‘Matthew,’ said the vet. ‘You’re not making much sense.’
‘He is,’ said Matthew’s father. ‘Gad, the boy’s right, that’s Monty back from the dead.’
‘It’s quite simple,’ said Matthew. ‘I buried the wrong cat.’
‘But this one was found over ten miles away on Hildstock’s land,’ said the vet. ‘He’d been living with an old tramp, or that’s what I was told.’
Montezuma sat where he was in the dust for a few moments, his eyes still blinded by the bright sun. He looked all around him and up at Matthew to be quite sure that the voice really did belong to the person he had remembered. It did.
At that very moment Sam came up behind the car. The cat’s back arched instinctively and then relaxed and the two approached each other and stood nose to nose. The three men looked on as the two animals checked each other over and came to full recognition. For the first time in his life Montezuma brushed himself up against the dog, his tail trembling with affection. Sam looked askance at this and his ears went back, but he stood his ground as the cat wound its way in and out of his legs, purring ecstatically.
‘That’s the only cat Sam can live with,’ said Matthew.
‘Same as me,’ said Matthew’s father. ‘There’s not another cat I’d have in my house, I can tell you that.’
‘Then that was the one I fixed up after that dog fight a few years back,’ said the vet.
‘Same cat,’ said Matthew. ‘Same dog.’
Montezuma was hungry again. He looked up and saw his back door and did not wait to be invited. He bounded down the path and disappeared inside. Matthew and his father waited for the scream of delight they knew would follow. It came a few moments later and Matthew’s mother came out of the door shouting to the whole world that she had found Monty, that Monty had come back.
‘I’m pleased I came today,’ said the vet.
‘So am I,’ said Matthew. ‘So am I.’
THE END
THE SEASONS ON THE FARM CAME AND went and over the years the world around Montezuma changed. By the time Matthew had married and brought his wife, Zoe, home to live, Montezuma was already an old cat, nearly fourteen years old by Matthew’s reckoning, ‘Love me, love my cat,’ Matthew had warned her, so Zoe had no option. It was not hard to love Montezuma. Crumpled, slow and dignified there was the look of the old soldier about him that commanded respect and affection.
As the years passed and his powers declined, Montezuma came to live more and more in the farmhouse. With his eyes dimming and his joints stiffening, his hunting days were clearly over; the mice moved too fast and the birds always saw him coming. He could still manage beetles, spiders and leaves but there was little satisfaction there for an old campaigner like Montezuma and even less nourishment. He came to rely completely on the three meals that Matthew’s father prepared for him every day: soggy cornflakes and milk, scraps from the lunch table and a gleaming mackerel every evening. The two grew old together and a bond of great sympathy grew up between them as the years went by. The long sofa in the sitting room was now the resting place for the ‘two old age pensioners’, as Matthew referred to them. They would lie down together during the long afternoon, each reflecting on their early days.
Montezuma had only blurred and indistinct recollections for the most part, but he thought often about the old man he had lived with in the fishing hut so many years before, of his entombment in the snow; and about Sam, the old sheep dog, now dead and gone and replaced by an ill-mannered puppy who had none of Sam’s diplomatic forebearance and dignity, and who barked ceaselessly whenever he spotted Montezuma. He remembered too the little girl with the long hair whom he had found singing on her swing in the garden. He had his nightmares as well and he could not forget them, but the one that troubled him most, that made him wake up with a start, was the vision of the great black cat with shining teeth that he had fought in the yard, stalking through the grass towards him.
When Matthew’s son was born, it was Montezuma that took over the role of sentry in the shade of the pram in the back yard. He would wait by the back door until Zoe had tucked the baby into his pram. He would watch while she bent over him and listen as the two cooed and gurgled to each other in delight. Then he would take up his post underneath, curl himself up into a ball and lie there daydreaming until the pram was emptied again. If the baby cried and no-one came he would walk back into the house and yowl until they followed him back outside again. Then, his duty done, he would creep into the sitting room, seek out the softest available patch on the sofa and snuggle down by Matthew’s father to finish his dreams.
Only occasionally now did he accompany Matthew out onto the farm and then only as far as the end of the lane. There he would sit and wait in the middle of the road until Matthew came walking back from the milking parlour across the road, the churn swinging in his hand. The waiting was long and he would while away the hours enveloped in the fantasy of his past, trying to forget the pain in his joints and the ache along his back.
Deafness came with old age so that he heard little now of the world around him. It had come on gradually so that he was not aware that he was missing anything. He would sit there in the middle of the road waiting for Matthew, and the tractors and cars would slow down and drive around him. To them he had become an expected hazard, like a pothole in the road that you have t
o avoid. Everyone in the lane knew Montezuma, and everyone took great care not to disturb him. On his part he never paid the cars any attention but sat neat and upright, his eyes closed waiting for Matthew to come back. But as everyone said, shaking their heads, one day someone would come who did not know that the crossroads belonged to Montezuma.
The holiday season brought strange cars down the lane, packed with lively children, yapping dogs and picnic baskets. When the sun shone warm and strong from deep blue skies then the people came out of hibernation from miles around, came down the road past farm lane and made for the shady banks of the river.
Often enough Mr. Varley had emerged from his cottage at the crossroads, picked Montezuma up and put him down in the safety of the hedgerow. ‘It’s dangerous to be there, my dear,’ he’d say. ‘Not a place for an old cat like you. I’ll park you by the hedge here, and you can wait for Matthew to come back. He won’t be long.’ But he was long and Montezuma very soon crept out of the hedge and moved out into the middle of the road again where he could see further round the bend in the direction Matthew always came from.
That dusty September evening, many cars had passed him safely enough, until at dusk a big black car with rows of shining chrome like teeth came rushing towards him. The family inside was noisy after the excitement of their picnic and the father turned round in fury to silence the riot on the back seat. It needed only that one momentary distraction, and the car was on top of the cat before he had time to hit his brake. Montezuma had opened his eyes, feeling the vibration in the road underneath him. He sensed there was danger and would have moved, but hesitated for just one split second. The car was from his nightmare. Could he still be dreaming? Was this the black cat coming for him again.? He tried to move at the last moment but his legs were stiff and would not obey him quickly enough. The car hit him on the side as he sprang away and bowled him into the ditch. When he tried to right himself he found his back legs would not respond, they had gone quite numb and useless. He lay back and waited for his strength to return. When he looked up there were faces peering down at him.
‘Is he dead?’
‘Only an old cat.’
‘I never even saw him.’
‘Only an old farm cat. His eyes are open. He’s alive. He’ll be all right.’
‘Shouldn’t we tell someone?’
‘It’ll only upset the children, you know that. And we’re late as it is.’
‘But we can’t just leave him there.’
‘What else can we do? He’s just a tatty old farm cat – plenty more where he came from.’
‘D’you think he’s bad? D’you think he’ll live?’
‘Course he will. Tough as old boots they are. He’s just stunned, that’s all. Nine lives they’ve got, remember?’
The children kept calling from the car and that settled the matter. The car drove off and the lane was silent again. Montezuma summoned all his tired strength and pulled himself along the ditch, up through a hole in the hedge and away towards the farm across the barley fields.
Later that evening, when Montezuma had not returned for his evening meal, the family went out looking. Montezuma hadn’t gone missing like this for years and they all feared the worst. Matthew’s mother and father searched the farm buildings near the house whilst Matthew and Zoe combed the fields and hedgerows down towards the river and along the road. Mr. Varley came out when he heard them calling and joined in the search. No-one rested until it was too dark to go on and even then Matthew stayed outside calling in the silence of the night.
He didn’t know what made him climb the bales in the big barn, but he had often found Montezuma lying asleep up under the warm corrugated roof on a bed of soft hay. He had already searched the stack once without success. However, this time he climbed to the very topmost layer up amongst the rafters. He shone his torch into the darkest corners of the stack, sweeping systematically around him in ever decreasing arcs. The beam came to rest at the end of a row of broken bales. He hoped it was an old sack, but knew inside himself that he had found Montezuma.
He was lying stretched out in a deep bed of hay. His two back legs were twisted awkwardly and the head hung loose, the eyes closed. It was quite obvious he was dead.
He buried the old cat that same night by torch-light, marking the place in the spinney with the spade. When he went into the house he told no-one, but went straight to bed. He hadn’t the stomach to break the news. That night he lay awake thinking of old Monty and the times they had spent together. He tried to imagine the old cat a kitten once again but could not bring the picture into focus. He kept coming back to the last time he had seen him, sitting out in the lane as he went off down to milking that afternoon. He would not tell the others of the broken back, of what he suspected had happened. He would say he had found him right up on the hay stack, that he had just curled up and died as old cats do, away from everyone and where no one should find them.
It was his father’s idea to dig up a young oak sapling and to plant it over Montezuma’s grave. They stood back once it was done while Zoe planted a few daffodil bulbs in the soft earth around the tree.
‘That’ll be there longer’n me,’ said Matthew’s father, ‘and longer’n any of us. It’ll grow fine and strong like Monty. Come on then,’ he said, turning away abruptly. ‘Can’t be wasting time. There’s that hedge down along the road that needs laying again, Matthew. The sheep’ll be breaking out there before the end of the winter if you’re not careful. Can’t stand around here all day. There’s work to be done.’
A few nights later, high up amongst the soft warm hay in the old barn, a young she-cat gave birth to her first litter of kittens. There were three, and one of them was ginger with a great white patch on his throat.
Michael Morpurgo, The Nine Lives of Montezuma
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